G'day! Pull up a chair! Join me at the kitchen table for a chat...let's toss a few thoughts around about the state of this crazy but wonderful world we inhabit. There's lots to discuss! Make yourself comfortable! Would you like a glass of wine?

Tuesday, March 26, 2013

LET’S NOT SPLIT HARES! I’M NO RABBIT, BUT I AM A RABID CREATURE OF HABIT!

Beware the hare! There will be lots of dem wascally scwewy wabbits wunning awound over Easter weekend. One that won’t be wunning awound is my chocolate Lindt wabbit. He’s still enjoying west and wecweation in my fwidge. (Nods to Elmer Fudd)

Firstly, an update; or, perhaps, this is the first time you’ve heard about my chocolate bunny! If that be the case here is his tale.

My Lindt chocolate bunny remains intact in my fridge; his ears didn’t even droop during the lengthy power outage we experienced a while back. Nothing has changed in his contained world. Over his years in residence, my fridge has become his home away from home. Clad in gold with a dark brown ribbon wrapped around his neck more as a fashion statement than for warmth, he has no escape plans. He just chills out.

My “Peter Chocolate-tail” feels secure in the knowledge that I’m a big sook. He knows I’m a softie who hasn’t the heart to eat him; not after all this time! I’m sure he wriggles his whiskers, flaps his ears and gives me a wink each time I open the fridge! I think he has Stockholm Syndrome!

If you believe all of that, you’re as crazy as I am! But, go with the flow...humour me!

Colourfully-wrapped chocolate eggs; elaborately-decorated sugar eggs; myriad bunnies of all sizes and mouthwatering hot cross buns have been tempting us on our supermarket shelves in the lead-up to Easter. We may niggle about the lengthy pre-Easter sales-marketing processes; nonetheless, we still willingly indulge in the variety of delightful delicacies on offer. I confess...I do!

When we were kids, my brother and I waited impatiently for Easter Thursday to arrive. Bursting with excitement we were unable to contain, home from school we’d race, ripping off our school clothes upon arrival. Quickly donning our “gad-about” attire, we’d grab a couple of Mum or Nana’s hats on our way out to the yard to gather grass and leaves. We’d then build nests in the hats for the Easter Bird to deposit its multitude of colourful eggs. No wascally wabbits visited us in those days of old when we were young and bold and did as we were told! The bird was the word in our household! No money was expended on the bunny!

Our Easter bird was an early bird; he filled our nests on Good Friday. No waiting around for a tardy bunny to belatedly arrive on Easter Sunday for us!

Anyway, you pundits of restraint shouldn’t criticise our eagerness to receive our Easter treats. Nowadays, hot cross buns and other Easter treats appear, without excuse, rhyme or reason upon supermarket shelves before we’ve had time to discard our Christmas gift-wrapping paper and ribbons; long before we’ve had time to exchange Aunt Clara’s set of flying ducks for something useful; or use them as target practice! I’m sure hot cross buns sometimes arrive on the shelves before Santa has given his sleigh a grease and oil change, let alone found time to polish Rudolph’s nose; or change the bulb in that very nose!

When Hinchinbrook Island was my home, my chef, David ordered a whole suckling pig – it was a big fellow (both the chef and the suckling pig) - to feed the resort’s hungry guests as part of our Easter Saturday night’s fare. Come Saturday afternoon David and my second chef, Ken readied the spit roaster on the deck surrounding the pool. Donning their somewhat risqué barbecue aprons, the description of which I shall not give here at the risk of offending those of more genteel natures, the preparation of the suckling pig began.

With curious interest, many of the holiday-makers gathered around to watch the activity out on the deck.

David had/has a mischievously wicked sense of humour. The previous evening, returning to the restaurant after dressing for the evening festivities, I popped into my office before spending time with my guests around their dinner tables and at the cocktail bar. Entering my office, I received a surprise.

Hogging my office chair was the bald beast (again, the swine, not my chef) displaying a demeanour of piggish authority. David had dressed the Frau sow in a colourful T-shirt. Smugly, it sat with a sun hat on its head, sun glasses on its snout and a glass of Scotch taped to its front right trotter! Harumph! I burst out laughing; grabbed my camera and took a photo. I must go in search of said photo! It is here somewhere amongst all my memorabilia...

Come Easter Saturday night everyone was in high spirits; guests and staff alike. When the suckling pig was cooked to perfection, my two chefs became engrossed in a battle royal as they tried to dislodge it from the shaft or vice versa. There were bits of pork flying everywhere! Who said pigs can’t fly? Often we put on free entertainment for our guests; it was part of the package deal; one they weren’t aware of when making their bookings.

After much hilarity dinner was served. Peace descended; appetites were sated.

7 am each morning on the island, from the end of the jetty, we tossed our perishable food scraps out into the ocean; excellent burley for the fish population. Like clockwork, a wide variety of fish gathered, having synchronised their watches to meet daily at 6.57 am; scales ironed; fins polished. They never disappointed they always turned up, with their friends and neighbours in tow.

That particular Easter Sunday morning following the previous night's festivities, with no fuss and one big gulp; and nary a sound of a burp, Sly swallowed the carcass immediately it hit the water. I then tossed Sly a packet of Quick-Eze, figuring he might need them for being such a pig!

Hasselback Potatoes: Thinly and evenly cut through unpeeled potatoes; don’t cut all the way through. Place on baking sheet; drizzle liberally with olive oil and melted butter infused with garlic; fan out slices to get in between layers; sprinkle with Italian herbs and seasoning; sprinkle salt and pepper on outside of potatoes. Roast at 200C until golden; drizzle with oil and butter as needed. Sprinkle with grated Parmesan the last 10-15 minutes of baking.

14 comments:

We had to wait until Sunday mornng for our eggs. And eggs it was. No chooks, no bunnies. And, depending on finance - an egg rather than many.The Lindt chocolate bunny is a very recent treat here, and treat it is. However, it will get eaten.Have a wonderful Easter.

Hi EC...we were too impatient to wait until Sunday...having made the nests in the hats reading for the Easter Bird to arrive...that was it! No waiting allowed!! ;)

Enjoy your Lindt bunny...mine is safe from me; but I do have a pile of Cherry Ripes (my Easters are not complete without Cherry Ripes)...and I do have a few bars of dark chocolate in the fridge, as well. I already had four bars in there...but I couldn't resist buying two more when I was at the supermarket yesterday!! I don't eat chocolate all the time...hence having so much in my fridge...but it is there if the mood takes hold!

You have a wonderful Easter, too...stay safe on the roads if you're out and about.

Alas, oh how I miss the pig roasts of days long gone by. It was years before I realized that I really had had suckling pig! (Yeah, I can be rather slow at times. Please don't tell a certain somebody we know--okay?)

By the way, I remember a rather innocent-looking young lass with long strawberry blonde hair, who always managed to steal many of the Easter eggs I would find each year at the annual town Easter egg hunt back before I got too old for them to let me hunt anymore. Was it you?

As for your second comment...no, that wasn't me...I've never been a strawberry blonde in my life. I was a brunette with auburn highlights...now both have faded to grey...but I don't mind in the least! One is never too old or too grey to go on an Easter egg hunt! So get cracking!

I'll take the suckling pig and, sorry, no sharing. This was so hard to read, all the treats and goodies. I'll be honest. We've been on a diet here for quite some time and I have lost 40 pounds. I'm really no longer Big Dave but still a somewhat larger Dave. But just like a smoker who gives up his smokes, you still crave the product. In my case, that's fatty foods.

We had hard boiled eggs we decorated ourselves. Rarely did we get a chocolate egg and never a bunny.

My parents never said the Easter Bunny delivered them.

Although one of my uncles did deliver a largish basket from his shop for a couple of years and told us it was from the Easter Bunny, my sister and had already seen it on display at his store, so we weren't fooled.

G'Day RM...one Easter years ago I bought the Lindt bunny for myself. Easter came and went, but the bunny stayed. I just didn't get around to eating it. And then another Easter came and went...and so on and so forth. Now the bunny has been in my fridge so long...I just don't have the heart to eat him!

I have enough blocks of chocolate in my fridge to graze on when the mood takes...the bunny is safe! ;)